Hi,
I hope it is appropriate to post this here rather than Off The Wall.
I am having diffficulty getting the Gentoo PPC minimal CD to fully boot using PearPC. The CD is install-ppc-minimal-2006.1.iso The version of PearPC is 0.4. I don't know why it is refusing to boot, but something is certainly wrong somewhere. It starts to boot, but hangs very early. This is the output in the main screen

I suspect that the boot process fails somewhere for the CD and that PearPC drops back to attempting a hard drive boot.

Can someone at least suggest what video mode I should be passing to the kernel and how to pass it. I am not familiar with yaboot in any way._________________Need assistance with any of the following? Just PM me and I will see what I can do

nixnut's suggestion is a good one. Basically, what's happening is that the framebuffer isn't starting, so there's nowhere for the kernel to display to. Hence, the "hang". ofonly is the PPC equivalent of VGA in that it should work on most machines and give a working console._________________Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

Unfortunately the boot process still failed. I used the following command lines as different tests, but none worked.

Code:

apple video=ofonly
apple video=ofonly nol3
apple video=rivafb

I thought trying a different video mode may help, but no such luck there either. I changed the memory from 128MB to 240MB, but still had the same problem. I also found that the lines I posted about IO/CUDA are caused by the mouse being unresponsive. This is the information listed after the Licencing preample is printed out.

I can't tell you what the problem is, but like I said before, you'll get that exact sequence on a real PPC machine if you don't have a framebuffer setup. You may need to tweak the kernel to support whatever hardware pear is emulating._________________Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

I don't know the first thing about how I would tweak this kernel. I would assume that I would need to build a new kernel, but I don't know what options to select for the particular hardware. I do have a cross-ppc-ulibc toolchain that I can use (needed for building GameCube kernels on x86).

A few other notes:
I tried using the windows qemu-ppc app. This emulates (as far as I can tell) a PPC604. It will happily boot a 2.4.25 Debian system that comes in the package, but again it fails to boot the install CD, even with video=ofonly. The fail point is the same, but it outputs alot about OF errors. I will post these at request.
I think I may have to go for a 2.4 kernel based system to boot. Most of the forums mentioning Gentoo and PearPC talk about 2004.1, which I assume is a 2.4 kernel based install.

I need to use PearPC so that I can build software for my GameCube. I will require a 2.6 kernel since I am using Native Posix Threading Library, and a 2.4 kernel does not support this. I don't think there are any 2.4 kernel patches for the GameCube, and I also have a few other dependencies on the 2.6 kernel. I know that in theory I can boot a 2.4 kernel and build a system that will run on a 2.6 kernel, but it must either support both NPTL and linuxthreads, or have no NPTL support.

I cannot build on the GameCube directly. This is not because of the slow speed, but because it requires the use of NFS. A known bug exists when building GCC over NFS. If it is built while using NFSv2, it will fail somewhere in the compile. For me it was libaberty.c and it takes a long time to get to that point. If NFSv3 is used in TCP mode and async as suggested, it fails when comparing files. The appropriate bug (posted for a similar system) is 158546

I know I have gotten a little off track. If I really have no choice but to use a 2.4 Kernel, then I will. I would still prefer the use of a 2.6 Kernel, but know nothing about how to configure it appropriately for PearPC._________________Need assistance with any of the following? Just PM me and I will see what I can do

You don't need to emulate a whole PowerPC system to build for it. Is there a reason why you're doing it this way? It should be easier to simply build the packages using the cross compiler you already have._________________Gentoo PPC FAQ: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-faq.xml

I wanted to perform emerge -u world before I got too far. Portage insists on updating the compiler. Even if I use several cross compilers and ran Distcc from the GameCube, I will still run into trouble with NFS. I am fearful that I will have further problems while compiling software on the GameCube caused by the use of NFS. I don't really want to compile every package by hand external to the cube, dump it in the packages repository and have the cube install it through an emerge -k package. Since I want my software built with appropriate use flags for the GameCube, I don't truly have the luxury of using one of the packagse CDs

I tried 2004.1 This is a 2.6.5 Kernel, but contains six seperate kernels, one for G3, G4 and G5, then each of these with SMP support. Under PearPC, it failed to get too far, but with much different errors this time. Under qemu-ppc, it got as far as showing the tux penguin in the framebuffer, but that was it. Again I am using the video=ofonly option.

I am currently downloading the 2004.0 liveCD. Hopefully this contains a kernel old enough to run on this emulated hardware and I can sucessfully boot from it._________________Need assistance with any of the following? Just PM me and I will see what I can do

I have tried using the 2004.0 Install CD, the one most forums mention as working with PearPC. This CD fails again to load at the point where the frame buffer would start. The following output was given:

This is the point where execution halts. Under qemu-ppc, the same output is given, the frame buffer appears and the tux penguin is shown. Execution halts at this point under qemu-ppc. kernel command line is G4 video=ofonly

As stated, this is a 2.6.3 kernel. I would have assumed that if this kernel is capable of booting PearPC, then PearPC should be able to boot a current 2.6 kernel. I am still quite lost on where to go from here. If anyone has any suggestions at all, I would appreciate them._________________Need assistance with any of the following? Just PM me and I will see what I can do

I did some research on qemu-ppc and came across a link for installing Debian Sarge on qemu-ppc. Since the architectures are so similar, hopefully anything that works on qemu-ppc should apply for PearPC. I also found a second link from this page (broken) to a PearPC forum about PearPC and the use of a 2.6 Kernel. I have given an updated link.
Debian Sarge on qemu-ppcPearPC Forum - Trouble with 2.6 Kernel

I will attempt to build a simple Debian system on PearPC and qemu-ppc. I will compare the compile times for gcc on both and see which one will build my GameCube system sucessfully. Unfortunately, building ntplonly software will not be an option. This relies on a 2.6 kernel, and I only have 2.4 kernel as an option to boot. I could attempt to build a sucessful 2.6 Kernel for PearPC and/or qemu-ppc, but that will take a long time, and I have no experience in that.

Is there anyone who would be willing to help make a kernel patch for a recent 2.6 Kernel (say 2.6.18 ) that will boot with PearPC? I am willing to at least start a new post in Gentoo on Altetnate Architectures, and debug any kernel statements I can. I guess it will be a large community effort. PearPC seems to have significantly slowed development, so we will at least have a fairly static application to work with._________________Need assistance with any of the following? Just PM me and I will see what I can do

If you’re still around, I had a very similar problem installing Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” on my AMD64 machine. PearPC, even the new version 0.5.0 from 2011, still makes you experience alpha software status!

The JITC doesn’t work. The new amd64-version compiles fine, but it doesn’t run. It will just sit there wasting CPU power (1 core at 100%) and display the Apple logo forever.

After a short period of time I always get these “[IO/CUDA] <Warning> Event processing timed out. Event dropped.” errors over and over again, and the installed Mac OS X becomes unusable.

When this happens, I have trouble getting my mouse back (F12 is continuously ignored). It helped to switch to a text console (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and back to X11 (Ctrl-Alt-F7), sometimes more than once and pressing F12 again and again while moving the mouse away from the PearPC window. This got the mouse uncaptured and I was able to close the PearPC window.

I compiled an X11 and an SDL version (./configure --enable-ui=[x11|sdl]); Qt and GTK didn’t work for me (Qt propably requires Qt3, and I don’t know what the problem with GTK is).

To come back to your original problem and what might solve this issue: I found a solution at pearpc.net.
Edit pearpc-0.5/src/io/cuda/cuda.cc and find the following block of code (near the bottom, code lines 903 through 909):

Enable this “lock-up parachute” by removing the surrounding /* */.
Note: this also works in PearPC 0.4.0, but this older version doesn’t include the JITC for AMD64 and it doesn’t compile with gcc 4.3/4.4/4.5.

The activation of this “lock-up parachute” made my Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” usable and PearPC work as expected. With the generic CPU it is really really slow, but it’s stable. The input sometimes still hangs, but only for some milliseconds. Otherwise Mac OS X inside PearPC runs stable IMHO.